Last week, Infants children enjoyed a visit from Aura Parker, a wonderful children’s author and illustrator. The children were very excited to finally meet Aura, having read many of her picture books in the Infants Library this term.
The students were inspired by Aura, who has written stories since she herself was a young child. She encouraged the children to find story ideas in their every day lives and to have a journal in which to jot these ideas down. The children were reminded that becoming good at something takes dedication, time and a lot of practise. Aura told them that many of her books have taken around 18 months to produce.
Aura’s books are beautifully illustrated in watercolour, pen and coloured pencils. The children had the opportunity to draw some of the characters from her books. It was wonderful to see all the children engage in drawing and there are definitely some budding picture book illustrators among them!
Aura has won awards such as the Children’s Book Council of Australia Notables and the Speech Pathology Book of the Year. Her book, Bowerbird Blues, was chosen for the National Simultaneous Storytime this year, which was a great honour. We encouraged Aura to keep writing and illustrating, as we hope to read many more of her books in the future.
